An autopsy of a leader without narcosis. Stalin’s body is dissected on a table against the backdrop of Czech history. The footage starts in 1948, when the Soviet Union occupied the country, then moves to 1989, when the Velvet Revolution began.

Švankmajer himself has noted that this miniature critique of communism may age faster than his other works. In 1990, he said: “Despite the fact that this film emerged along the same path of imagination as all my other films, I never pretended that it was anything more than propaganda.”